Gold Basin SNOTEL site (10,000')

Under a ridge of high pressure, we'll see sunny skies, light to moderate SW winds, and high temps in the low 20's today. Look for developing clouds and increasing winds tonight into Tuesday as the first in series of waves moves through the region. Unstable weather under a northwesterly flow will be the trend through Thursday, with the storm track mainly affecting points north.

Reports from observers yesterday are of widespread, deep, and very large natural avalanches on northerly aspects from Friday's storm event. Some are thousands of feet wide. Brian Murdock and I were able to get a close up look at this avalanche off the Laurel Ridge into Horse Creek that was 4.5' deep and 1500' wide. This was a hard slab avalanche failing on a persistent weak layer of of sugary, faceted snow at the base of the snow pack, the result of early season, mid-October snow. This persistent weak layer had become largely non-reactive through the last two weeks of December, but 22" of snow at nearly 2.5" Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in 16 hours proved to be too much of a load. The recent load has provided quite a thump, and as the dust settles so to speak, we should see a trend towards greater stability. With the magnitude of these avalanches, we need to give things some time however. It is still possible if not likely to trigger one of these monsters. Likely trigger points include shallow, rocky areas, along slope margins, or on steep convexities.

Local observers reported excellent conditions out of the wind zone, with scoured, wind affected surfaces in exposed areas, along with a liberal scattering of wind slab on all aspects. The strong sun yesterday moistened southerly aspects and there will be some crusts out there today. Thanks to Dave Garcia and Travis Nauman for their reports from the hinterlands.